Minorities make better progress than white pupils

LONDON: The children of Asians, including those from India, and other ethnic minorities are making much better progress at secondary schools than white pupils in the UK, according to a university study.

Such children are either closing the gap in achievement with white pupils or have overtaken them by the time they sit at GCSE (equivalent to the Secondary Leaving Certificate) examinations, the study from the University of Bristol said.

“One striking fact is that poor white students are the lowest-performing of all groups at age 16, showing a substantial deterioration in their relative scores through secondary school,” it said. The report claimed that ethnic minority pupils did well because their parents were more determined that they should succeed. Issues such as quality of education did not explain why Indian children performed better than white pupils in 90 per cent of schools.

Economists Deborah Wilson, Simon Burgess and Adam Briggs compared results of national curriculum tests and GCSE examinations for more than half a million secondary pupils between 1997 and 2002.

Some ethnic minority students, particularly from Pakistani backgrounds and blacks gained lower GCSE results than their white peers. But all minority students were found to be progressing more quickly than white pupils, once factors such as poverty and family language were taken into consideration.

The results were consistent in almost every school. The exception was black Caribbean pupils, whose scores improved in only about half of schools, the report said.